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Report on Consumer-Behaviour

Mobile Services

Prepared by :

Nishant Singh
Harsh Agrawal
Bishnu Chetri
Sravani
Ashutosh Kumar Jha
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In recent years, the expansion in the usage of mobile services has been exceptionally rapid, esp.
in growing economies like India and China. While mobile services has been dissected and
analyzed in detail many times over, this exploratory study attempts to investigate consumer
purchasing motives in mobile services markets


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The main aim of this study is to understand the reasons that affect consumer behavior as well as
give insights into the use of mobile services including the perceived value added services.
Perception of mobile connectivity having transformed from luxury till a few years back to basic
necessity in present days we try to examine how consumer¶s views about the mobile services
have transformed over past few years and how they have affected the choices they make. For
understanding the consumer psychology, we held detailed discussions with three long-time users
who have also taken new connections very recently and tried to look at how they went about the
process of procuring new mobile service. To avoid getting a lop-sided view, we selected people
from varied background, using different mobile service providers and from different geographic
regions. Our intention was to understand the factors that influence the decision of selecting any
particular mobile service provider.


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Two out of three consumers or spoken to cited the references from their social circle as the
biggest influence on their decision. Either parents or the friends were on a particular network and
motive was to minimize the total mobile charges utilizing the group packages for same network
offered by mobile operators. The recommendations were usually regarding lower call rates on an
aggregate (eg:- cheaper calls for parents on that particular network). In these cases, it was also
noticed that the secondary research undertaken to find out information about the network
regularity and reliability was minimal. Even if some information was acquired, in one of the case
feedback being negative, it did not have any influence on the final decision. Cultural factors like
caste, creed or religion etc. did not seemingly influence the decision. This is primarily because
none of the networks available were perceived to be favoring any particular economic class/
status, or regional area or gender. All of the mobile service advertisements are seen as neutral
and focusing on their services and connectivity only. Only shift noticed was increasing influence
of friends usurping family as the biggest factor.

Second biggest factor was found to be the call charges and Short-Messaging services (sms)
packages. After the initial usage of a few years all the three people changed over to a network
with overall lower charges. This may also be attributed to the factor that consumer had matured
and understood their requirements better. Also the research done about the various options
available with the consumer was much higher this time.

But the recent lowering of tariff across the networks has altered this trend. With the tariff across
all networks being nearly same and comfortably low, consumer forgoes a little lower tariff for
inconvenience of getting a new contact number and needing to inform all the contact people.

One of the consumers spoke about his decision being influenced by the advertisement campaign
run by a leading provider which created a lasting brand image (Airtel¶s advertisement featuring
AR Rehman). Even though the advertisement was latent about the network and services, its
choice of brand ambassador and approach were very influential.

Quality of service provided by the operator, although perceived to be most important factor, had
always low influence on the final decision. One of the reason we found for this being the lower
perceptible difference between connectivity provided by various operators. The role of
salesperson of operators in the choice was very minimal which was in contrast with the similar
findings from other countries referred to. One of the user, spoke about the inconvenience he
faced with his earlier service provider due to multiple promotional calls and messages, but still
considered it to be a minor issue and insignificant when considering options for a new
connection.

Getting a new connection, according to all the consumers questioned, was hassle-free and easy
process. They also found dealers to be very customer friendly.

Post connection hassles were also not found and none of the users had any significant views
about it. When users were asked whether they would opt for a network with poor reputation in
customer-care support, all of them considered it to be a minor issue and not decision influencing
one.
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Based on our interaction with the users of the mobile services, we found when selecting mobile
service operator the biggest influence on the decision making was of family and friends. It also
revealed the growing influence of friend¶s references when compared to parents. Tariffs and
quality of service, even though accepted as very important factors it had very low influence on
the final decision.